I find this story about a married lesbian couple whose church barred them from receiving communion totally disturbing. Not because the church barred them from receiving communion--it seems to me that if the Catholic church wants to say that gay marriage is a sin and sinners can't receive communion, that's their right (or rite, if you will). But the issue here appears to be not that the women were lesbians, not that they got married, but that they told people about it. Several people from the church explicitly say as much, with apparently no inkling as to how they are undermining their own moral stance. Here's the end of the story--does this priest really understand what he's saying, and its implications for Catholic "morality,"* if it can be called that?
Huskinson questioned why Catholics having premarital sex and using birth control are not barred from receiving Communion, too. But the parish priest said the difference is this: The other Catholics are "not going around broadcasting, `Hey I'm having sex outside of marriage' or `I'm using birth control.'"
*Note: Many Catholics are among the most moral people around, in all the positive senses of the word, but I am afraid that if this article accurately represents this church's beliefs and practices, it has an ethos of "morality," not morality.
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A small thought (though I am neither Catholic nor a theologian): it may be that the problem is not a "don't ask don't tell" aspect but rather that in being public about the sin one could "draw in" other, weaker/vulnerable people (or that the church, in sanctioning people who are open about their sinning, would be in a way sanctioning what they do).
I think that the whole idea of barring people from communion is bizarre in the first place, but, well, I am a heretical protestant. :)
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